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Sustainable Energy, Environment and Low-Carbon Development

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 18 June 2025 | Viewed by 732

Special Issue Editors

State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China
Interests: algae; anaerobic fermentation/digestion; energy and resource recovery; sludge treatment; biological treatment processes; advanced oxidation process
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Guest Editor
School of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China
Interests: biological wastewater treatment; bioelectrochemical system; emerging containments; anaerobic fermentation/digestion; energy and resource recovery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental problems such as industrial, domestic and agricultural pollution are becoming more and more serious around the world, causing a series of ecological problems and threatening human health. On the other hand, the insufficient supply of energy and the greenhouse gas emissions caused by fossil fuels also restrict the sustainable development of the economy and society. We hope to contribute to the construction of a low-carbon, green and sustainable society.

Here, we will continue to work in this direction. This Special Issue focuses on how green energy technologies can help reduce environmental pollution and achieve low-carbon sustainable development. The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together innovative academicians and industrial experts in related fields and to establish an academic platform on the communication of the latest research and developmental activities.

Dr. Hongyu Ren
Prof. Dr. Fanying Kong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • environmental problems
  • environment pollution
  • green energy technologies
  • sustainable development
  • bioenergy
  • energy conversion and management
  • water–energy–food nexus
  • recycling technologies
  • low-carbon development

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 1660 KiB  
Article
Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Heat Pump Systems: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Building Operations
by Mahdiyeh Zafaranchi, William T. Riddell, Nicholas B. Chan, Elizabeth Saliba and Luke Leung
Energies 2025, 18(2), 388; https://doi.org/10.3390/en18020388 - 17 Jan 2025
Viewed by 530
Abstract
This study evaluates the energy consumption and embodied carbon emissions of various heat pump systems for an office building in Chicago, IL, U.S., over a 50-year lifespan, including the operation, manufacturing, and construction phases. The analyzed systems include air source heat pumps (ASHP) [...] Read more.
This study evaluates the energy consumption and embodied carbon emissions of various heat pump systems for an office building in Chicago, IL, U.S., over a 50-year lifespan, including the operation, manufacturing, and construction phases. The analyzed systems include air source heat pumps (ASHP) in Air to Air and Air to Water configurations, and ground source heat pumps (GSHP) in Soil to Air and Soil to Water configurations. A traditional HVAC system serves as the baseline for comparison. Advanced simulation tools, including Rhino, Grasshopper, TRACE 700, and One Click LCA, were used to identify the optimal HVAC system for sustainable building operations. Unlike prior studies focusing on GSHP versus traditional HVAC systems, this research directly compares GSHP and ASHP configurations, addressing a significant gap in the sustainable HVAC system design literature. The GSHP (Soil to Water) system demonstrated the lowest energy intensity at 100.8 kWh/m2·yr, a 41.8% improvement over the baseline, and the lowest total embodied carbon emissions at 3,882,164 kg CO2e. In contrast, the ASHP (Air to Air) system, while reducing energy consumption relative to the baseline, exhibited the highest embodied carbon emissions among the heat pump configurations due to its higher operational energy demands. The study highlights the significance of the operating phase in embodied carbon contributions. These findings emphasize the importance of a holistic design approach that considers both operational and embodied impacts to achieve sustainable building designs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Energy, Environment and Low-Carbon Development)
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